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UK Record Industry Starts Suing Filesharers
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has the story that the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has started a first set of lawsuits against UK file sharers. 23 people paid £50,000 to settle out of court. This is the first time people in the UK have been fined, and probably won't be the last. From the article: "We are determined to find people who illegally distribute music, whichever peer-to-peer network they use, and to make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from."
I had a doubt. If my neighbour uses my wireless network (which I have kept open as a social service) to download copyrighted stuff, can I be sued????
fuvoo: watch something
When will the record companies learn, if they price there product in an affordable price range, people will buy.
r ow ing.fast/
Apple has sold approximately 85 million songs in the first two months of 2005, surpassing Piper Jaffray's initial estimates for the entire March quarter. Based on Apple's earlier announcement of 300 million total tracks sold, Senior Research Analyst Gene Munster says that iTunes sales could account for $83.2 million in revenue in the March quarter--or about $35 million more than the firm has been estimating. The firm also believes average daily sales rate has been 1.35 million per day since late January, which very similar to the 1.43 million daily run rate (i.e., sales of songs) in the weeks following the holidays. "We had been anticipating a more significant drop off in iTunes sales from the levels seen in the weeks following the holidays."
In addition to driving iPod sales, the firm says that Apple's iTunes Music Store will also contribute significantly to the company earnings: while it estimtates that the current operating margin on iTunes is in the low single digits, Piper Jaffray says it believes iTunes profitability will begin to increase throughout 2005, with operating margins reaching 5% to 10% in 2006.
http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/03/02/itunes.g
How many of these 23 people were under 10 or over 80 years old? And did at least half of them own a computer?
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Some parents have been genuinely shocked to discover what their children have been up to
If that's all your kids have been up to on the internet when you're not watching, you're in OK shape...
"...make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from."
Don't most artists make only a pittance on their album sales anyway, even after they have paid back the label for their 'generous' promotional contract?
Call me cynical, but claiming that the settlement money is going to go to artists seems disingenuous. Of course claiming 'lost' profits by the labels on file sharing is moreso.
Quick Vyvyan! Eat the hard drive!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
why don't they just sue for the ammount of $ they have stolen (i.e. the average cost of a CD) instead of charging these OUTRAGEOUS fees? Any body?
I haven't lost my mind. It's backed up on disk somewhere.
The problem is that it IS NOT their property. The RIAA is NOT a rightsholder. Therefore, by US law, their lawsuits are frivolous. They are suing on the behalf of others, who are mistaken if they expect money from the RIAA. The RIAA should go back to worrying about who gets gold records.
This isn't £50,000 each - it's £50,000 total. To quote TFA:
The average compensation payment was £2,200 each, with one person paying £4,500.
I mean, really, I don't want to pay what I consider outrageous prices for crap. I'm not downloading anything either. If you want some good music, go down to your local coffee house and listen to a good live band and buy their CD if you like their music. For the price of a coffee, I can listen to a small live concert for several hours while I do homework. You mean you can try before you buy? Amazing! The CD's I get from the local artists (and other independent artists that come through my area on tour) are much cheaper than the record-label CD's and the quality of music is sooo worth it. While the ethics of downloading the label's music is disputed, one thing I think we can all agree on is that the labels would have no ammo if people would just boycott them instead of refusing to purchase their crap and downloading music. Boycotts do work. And boycotts 'steal' nothing from the artists.
These aren't the sigs you're looking for.